


Or Like He Did, But He's Come Back

by luxover



Category: American Idol RPF, David Cook (Musician)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-10
Updated: 2012-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-09 13:06:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxover/pseuds/luxover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave throws a pool party when they both get back from their separate tours, and Neal thinks he’s an asshole for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Or Like He Did, But He's Come Back

Dave throws a pool party when they both get back from their separate tours, and Neal thinks he’s an asshole for it. 

“Come on, Doc,” Dave said. “We never get to hang out anymore, the four of us together.” 

And that—okay, Neal knows that’s a big thing for Dave. When Neal left the band—“Just the band?” Dave had asked, and Neal had felt sucker punched, said, “Fuck, of _course_ just the band, you fucker, I still _love_ you”—the hardest thing, Dave said, was that everything was thrown off, the dynamics of it all, waking up without Neal and joking around without Neal and playing concert after concert, all without Neal. 

So Neal did what he should, just looked up at Dave from where he was, spread out on the couch in front of the tv, and he said, “You’re an asshole.” It sounded a lot like _okay,_ and Dave knew it, too. 

It’s alright, though. Neal does shit like this because Dave will thank him later, in his own way, when it’s just the two of them in bed, or bent over the kitchen table, or on the living room floor, and so he hangs out in the backyard, in his docs and jeans, wearing an old white t-shirt with stray sharpie marks near the hem as the guys cannon ball and do can openers and demand that Neal rates their splashes from one to ten. It’s like dealing with fucking kindergarteners or some shit, and Neal loves it, has missed it. 

“So he’s standing there, right,” Andy says, his elbows hooked over the edge of the pool, keeping him afloat. Andy’s cheeks are red, his wet hair matted to his forehead, and he almost looks like he just finished playing a show, except for how he doesn’t look like that at all. Neal looks past him towards Dave, and Dave’s already looking back at him, his eyes bright and his smile stretched impossibly wide across his face. Looking at him makes Neal’s cheeks hurt, makes his chest feel tight. “And his drink goes flying, gets all over Devin, right—”

“It wasn’t my fault, though,” Kyle says. He climbs out of the pool, and his shorts are beyond short. They had all mocked him for it, earlier, calling his names and insulting the size of his junk; Kyle had just taken it all in stride and called them jealous whores who lacked charisma and fashion sense. Neal rubs the front of his own thighs, reminds himself that he’s still in jeans, and something in the movement must call the dogs over, because then Sixx is next to him, wet from having gone swimming earlier, Dublin trailing not far behind him. 

“It was kind of your fault,” Andy says. 

“Yeah, it was, kind of,” Dave agrees, and then the three of them burst out laughing, Andy and Kyle and Dave, and Neal feels like he’s missing something, maybe, or like he doesn’t know how to be with them all together like this. He takes a drag of his cigarette as Kyle cannonballs in next to Andy, water getting everywhere, on Neal’s boots and the pool deck and on the dogs. 

Dave climbs out of the pool and walks over to Neal, leans over him so that his hair is dripping water everywhere. He wraps his fingers around Neal’s wrist, says, “Come in with us,” and Neal just laughs. 

“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” Neal says, and he sits up so that he can take another drag of his cigarette without putting the cherry right in Dave’s face. 

In the water, Andy’s sitting on Kyle’s shoulders, and he yells, “Can’t chicken fight with just three, Doc!” 

“Then I send Mr. Sixx in my stead,” Neal deadpans, because no fucking way he’s changing out of his jeans. Too much work and too much skin, Neal thinks. 

He gets up to go put his cigarette out in the ashtray on the table, but the second he does, Dave tackles him, throws the two of them into the shallow end of the pool as Kyle and Andy laugh and yell. 

Neal resurfaces, spluttering, and his sunglasses are somewhere at the bottom of the pool, ashes from his cigarette floating on top of the water, and his hair is hanging in his eyes. He flicks it aside and then reaches out, punches Dave in the arm. 

“Fuck you,” Neal groans, and Dave just smiles. 

“Yeah, okay,” he says, and then he backs Neal up against the side, presses their two bodies together, and then kisses him, sloppy. He curls his fingers in the waistband of Neal’s jeans. “Would’ve preferred you in shorts—can’t blame me for wanting to see them gams you got—but I’ll accept a wet t-shirt.” 

“Shut up,” Neal says, because his legs aren’t anything, not like Dave’s. 

“How ‘bout the both of you shut up,” Kyle says, and then atop of him, still on his shoulders, Andy says, _“Chicken fight.”_

Neal looks at Dave for a minute, and Dave looks back at him like he doesn’t mind if Neal gets out, if he wants to—or maybe like he loves Neal, Neal isn’t sure—and so Neal just takes his shirt off and flings it vaguely in the direction of the pool deck. 

“Let’s demolish these motherfuckers,” Neal says, and Dave just salutes him, says, “Aye aye, Captain!” And suddenly, it’s just the four of them, fucking around in a pool, the dogs losing their shit as they run back and forth along the length of the edge, and Neal feels like he never left, or like he did but he’s come back, and maybe that’s the only part of it all that matters. 


End file.
